Fiction Family to kick off tour in Ann Arbor
Written by Vicki L. Kroll | | news@toledofreepress.comE-mail pals — that’s Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek and Jon Foreman of Switchfoot.
The two officially met when their bands played a festival in San Diego.
“We introduced ourselves and talked about writing a song and then ran into each other at a coffee house in between where we live and talked more about writing a song,” Watkins said.
The collaboration clicked, Watkins said during a phone interview en route to San Francisco.
“Co-writing can be tricky; you never really know what kind of creative chemistry there’s going to be even if you’re good friends or play often, but he and I worked really well together,” he said. “Sometimes I’d have a melody idea and I’d e-mail it to him, and he’d write lyrics to go with it and send that back to me. There was some corresponding that happened, actually, most of the songs were written that way, kind of corresponding, and recording, actually, a lot of it happened that way, too.”
The singer-songwriters formed a duo, Fiction Family, which will release its self-titled debut Jan. 20.
“Jon came up with [the band name], and I liked it a lot because, first of all, everybody loves alliteration, but also a lot of bands that involve two guys are usually brothers, so we figured it kind of made sense since we’re not brothers,” Watkins said.
Fiction Family will start its tour Jan. 13 at the Ark in Ann Arbor. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show; tickets are $15.
Fiction Family
The duo is featuring a free single, “When She’s Near,” on its Web site, www.fictionfamily.com.
“‘When She’s Near’ is cool because it felt like a good mix of what we both do. It’s actually the melody to a song I wrote a long time ago called ‘Teaberry.’ I wrote it in ’03 or ’04, and I didn’t like the words, but I liked the melody,” Watkins said. “I brought the melody in and Jon did most of the lyrics. That song was really fun to co-write and feels like a solid collaboration.”
Before teaming up, both artists were recognized in their respective fields. Watkins is the guitarist-singer and founding member of Nickel Creek, a Grammy Award-winning trio known for bluegrass and roots music. Foreman is the lead singer and guitarist of Switchfoot, a Grammy-nominated alternative rock band.
“There’s such a wide array of things we like to do, and because this record — we had no preconceptions or anything when we started it. We didn’t think twice about doing something that was completely opposite of the song we had just done, you know, completely different,” Watkins said of Fiction Family’s debut. “We never really thought about what music works here, we just did it. And it seems like an OK record even though there are some stark differences.”
Watkins said he and Foreman are looking forward to playing their songs live, but have no definite plans for the future.
“We both would love to as we’ve had so much fun writing and recording and making music together. I definitely think there’ll be something else at some point.”
